Old and New

One of the things that has made camping at Momentum much more bearable is the fact that I know someone with a shower.

A proper shower.

A warm shower, behind a door that locks, for which there is never a queue or a feeling of having to rush so the next person can use it. At Momentum, there is little more one could ask for in a shower.

And so every day I have managed to fit in a shower at some point and have been so grateful to scrub the mud from my body and to feel clean again.

However, after every shower, I have had to walk back to my own tent and, to do that, I have had to put my dirty clothes back on. They're not that dirty, but they're the clothes I had on before I had a shower.

Whilst I'm clean, it doesn't make sense to put old, unclean clothes on.

But how often do we do that as Christians? We have been made clean and have been offered new 'clothes', but we put on the 'clothes' of the old life again.

"You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it ... So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

[Colossians 3:9-14 MSG]

We have been washed and made clean by Jesus' blood, yet we often return to our old clothes: our old patterns of life, our old thoughts, our old addictions. But that's wrong. God has cleaned us up and has given us a new wardrobe. Let's wear it. Our old clothes have no use anymore.

So whilst I need mine to get back to my tent, in a spiritual sense, our old clothes are redundant.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

[2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV]

Afterthought

One of the things I have loved about camping is being able to see so many stars every night.

There is no light pollution in the middle of the campsite and the sky seems to stretch out endlessly.

I love looking up at the sky and waiting as my eyes adjust and more stars appear one by one by one. Until the whole sky is littered with silver sequins and I realise just how small I am and how huge God is.

And what I can see doesn't even begin to encompass all of God's creation. It doesn't even begin to reflect the hugeness of the Creator.

In the creation story in Genesis, it describes how God created the sun, the moon and the stars:

"Then God said, 'Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.' And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars."

[Genesis 1:14-16 NLT]

I love the last sentence. Five words. It is almost an afterthought, a post-script. No hype. No exaggeration. No embellishment.

He also made the stars.

God doesn't need our exaggeration or embellishment. We don't have to hype Him up. He is awesome. Without our help.

Sometimes, by exaggerating what God is like in human terms, we actually distort our view of Him. We think we have understood Him better but, really, we have made Him into something we can contain and control and comprehend.

But that is not who or what God is. He is incomprehensible. And we need only look at the stars to be reminded of His greatness and His magnitude.

Camping

I don't really mind camping.

I'm not a 'hard-core' proper camper: I have an air bed and have just been in search of a socket to plug in my hair straighteners (camping and curly hair is not a good combination). But I do quite enjoy a couple of nights in the outdoors.

I like the fresh air and the fact that you can see the stars and the fact that life slows down a for a little bit.

However, I think that I like these things most because I know that I am only camping for a few days.

If it became a lifestyle, if I knew I had to live in a tent for the test of my life, I think the novelty would soon wear off and I would get tired of it.

I'd find the space confining and restricting; I'd get annoyed that I can't stand up properly; I'd find it irritating that I couldn't always have a hot shower. My air bed would soon deflate and so would my enthusiasm.

The Bible says that it's the same with our earthly bodies: the physical bodies that we have here on earth are like tents: they are temporary and a poor reflection of the heavenly and eternal and glorious body that we will have after death:

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh."

[Corinthians 5:1,2,4 NLT]

Our earthly bodies are 'tents' which are fine for our time here and the work that God gives us to do. However, they are flimsy and sometimes uncomfortable, and that reminds us that they are not our permanent homes. We have an eternal and permanent house to look forward to.

I love this translation from the same passage in 2 Corinthians:

"He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less...Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead."

[2 Corinthians 5:5-6 MSG]

So, in the same way that at the end of the week I'll be glad to get back to my more substantial flat, when I am frustrated with my earthly body, I can take comfort that it is not my permanent residence.